Chapter 15 - Sense
Year 3001, Sunday 22 days until classes start. Simulator.
Why do commands exist?
Well. Ether is a manifestation of sentience. But why? What is sentience? What is will? Does a simulation simulate sentience? What even is sentience? What is ether?
I closed my eyes and sprawled out in the grass. What was happening? A splitting headache felt like something was trying to crack my skull open.
I let out a yelp as my eyes shot open. Some kind of blue dust flew past me. Blue dust? That couldn’t be. I rubbed my eyes. Eyes? Wait what?
Sqlch
What? Why did my eyelids feel… hollow? My eyes? But I could see! I must have eyes! I looked down at the ground and saw a crumbled body. My body. Wait. What?
-----
Ugh. What… what happened? I looked down, I had my body again. What? I stared at my hand for a minute when suddenly I collapsed onto the floor. But why? And how did I see myself? Ugh. Try to get up. Standing up I looked down and watched as the crumpled body started spazzing out.
“What the…”
What was the simulation? I remember reading that it was a perfect simulator of low ether objects. Low ether. Ether is sentience. Why would the simulator be restricted to low ether objects?
So. This was simulated. The me that was falling over and dying was fake. But it was also real at the same time. It was the future me in the simulation. Huh. That’s confusing.
So basically, Athena noticed something wrong with me in the simulation and decided to try and have me figure it out by trial and error in a second simulation instead of pulling the plug. Just a little pain? Heh. Sure.
-----
Sense. What is sense? Sense is a command Druids use to observe their surroundings. It reads the nature of all objects in a Druid’s sense range. The command. What was the command for? The command with imbuing is meant to reinforce the will of the ether being imbued. But sense didn’t seem to be putting ether into anything. Both my eyes and ears couldn’t handle the power of becoming sentient. It makes sense. Only the brain was designed to contain such power. Any normal structure would explode into a mist.
So. What was I supposed to do? Take in the ether? But how was I supposed to take in ether if I didn’t even know what it looked like. Didn’t know what it was. Didn’t know the essence of ether.
I opened my eyes again. How many times have I died in this simulation? It didn’t hurt anymore. I knew that in the simulation the physical pain was removed but the mental burden would still be severe. For some reason, the heavy pressure that pressed against my skull lessened every time my body collapsed.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Why would that be the case? The ether is stored in the brain. What would the pressure be? What if the pressure was the simulation attempting to predict my ether? My sentience? The more it observed the more it understood my reactions. The more it understood, the less it had to force my head to match the simulation.
Wait.
Force my head to match the simulation? Why was I following the simulation? Is it because it is supposed to be perfect? What makes a perfect simulation? It doesn’t make sense. The simulator isn’t perfect. Why should I follow it?
Crack
“AUGH”
-----
Screw the simulation. Must. Break.
Cr-- ack CRACK CRACK
“AUGHHHH”
SENSE
-----
I opened my eyes. Blue dust swirled around my head like floating glitter in imaginary floating rivers. They pooled and swirled in the air before coming to rest on the ground and disappearing. The pressure was gone. I looked down at my hand and saw it had stopped shaking.
Ah.
I’ve been following the rules for far too long. I had forgotten. Forgotten freedom.
If someone told me to roll over and die would I accept that? Hell no. But why did I accept the simulation? Because it’s supposed to be perfect? It isn’t. Is anything perfect?
I grabbed at one of the wisps of dust and watched as it sank into my skin. I smiled. That’s how it worked. That’s how ether worked. That’s what free will was. It wasn’t something that could be described. Wasn’t something that could be said. Wasn’t something that could be felt.
Ether wasn’t sentience. Ether wasn’t will. Ether wasn’t what anyone else told me it was. Ether was just… ether. And it was beautiful.
-----
“Kaiser? You good?”
“Yes…”
“You sure you aight man?”
I looked up at David who was squatting next to me, “Yeah. It’s all good.”
Looking up at the simulated sky I saw small bits of multicolored dust like particles sink into different objects as every object ejected a single color of the fine dust. It was interesting. Fascinating. Was this what my family poured their life into?
Athena’s eyes shined a bright red as if there was a flame in them. I flinched as her two massive searchlights pointed in my direction. Athena smiled, “Huh. This somehow worked.”
Dr. Monday sighed, “Kaiser was a few milliseconds away from fully synchronizing with Simulation.”
“That wouldn’t be good.”
“We should consider ourselves lucky.”
Athena frowned, “No. I think it was about time.”
“About time?”
“About time these kids open their eyes to the world.”
Dr. Monday chuckled, “Look at the world? We’re going to setup a discussion?”
Athena thought for a minute, “It’s probably a good idea for a discussion before classes. Some lessons on the basic structure of commands and such are also necessary.”
“I’ll get a discussion ready. You had better explain how it works. Kaiser was very lucky to figure out Sense on his own.”
-----
“What is this discussion thing?”
Athena was adjusting the parameters on the spaceship we had added to the simulation. She turned to me, “Oh that’s where you meet the Earth and talk to it.”
“What?”
“You need the Earth’s permission to use ether in a useful capacity.”
“Why?”
Athena continued messing with the parameters, “Well think about it. Our ether is made up of ether that was mostly processed by the Earth so it still has a great deal of control over everyone.”
“The earth could control us?”
Athena paused, “Well… yes. Yes but no.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are two main sources of ether that you can collect from. Either the earth or the moon. Since you’ve only been on earth it’s common courtesy to say hello to Earth.”
“Why?”
“Would you like it if someone took your spaceship flew it around for a few years then returned it whenever they decided to return it?”
I shook my head, “Of course not!”
Athena shrugged, “It’s exactly like that. Except humans are now basically immortal so you’re never getting that spaceship back.”
I was confused, “Then doesn’t Earth only lose out on this deal?”
Athena glanced down at me, “Yeah. It may seem like that sometimes. Your father will explain it someday. Earth makes a huge profit from us humans. More profit than you could possibly imagine.”
Yo. Another shout! It's really interesting story that goes pretty deep. Do check it out! Oh and the cover is fire.
Yo. so uh. The confusing stuff is mostly over. We're gonna start getting to progressing the story. We're about to reveal the big major arc that will span the whole series so the next few chapters are pretty critical. Follow if you want to read the weekly chapters and check out my for 2 chapters a week. Also, check out my for daily mudkip rants.
